Back in the halcyon days of August, the esteemed Ellsworth American was kind enough to send reporter Kate Cough to my reading at the Northeast Harbor, Maine, Library. Her report begins like this …
 
NORTHEAST HARBOR —When Julia Child got her first microwave oven “it was this magical space-age thing from NASA,” says her grandnephew Alex Prud’homme. “She was told you could cook everything in it.”
Julia decided to test the machine at her house in Cambridge, Mass. She was throwing a dinner party. “And she put the frozen chicken, the vegetables and the chocolate cake into this magical machine,” says Prud’homme. “She pushed the button and it kind of rumbled and began to smoke. Then they noticed some chocolate leaking out and she opened the door and this big cloud of smoke came out and there was a burnt and still frozen chicken in there, some really horrible looking vegetables and melted chocolate cake.”
On Aug. 15, Prud’homme regaled a rapt audience with stories of his time cooking and eating with his great aunt, America’s “first lady of French food,” at the Northeast Harbor Library. Child also was known in Maine. She and her husband, Paul, spent time summers at a rustic retreat in the Tremont village of Bernard.
“You’ve inspired me to cook!” gushed one woman as Prud’homme signed copies of the two books, “The French Chef in America: Julia Child’s Second Act” and “France is a Feast: The Photographic Journey of Paul and Julia Child,” that were the subject of the evening’s discussion.
For the rest of the story, please see: https://www.ellsworthamerican.com/living/living-food/chef-julia-childs-biographer-recalls-his-great-aunt-and-uncle/